A blog devoted to the actors and public policy issues involved in the 1998 District of Columbia Court of Appeals decision in Freedman v. D.C. Department of Human Rights, an employment discrimination case.

Friday, June 29, 2012

Humor Piece -- 1993

The following humor piece merges the story of John and Lorena Bobbit, who cut off her husband's penis -- with a story about the millionaire Haft family. Robert Haft owned Crown Books and used to famously say in his television commercials, "Books cost too much."

Seven
weeks after Gloria Haft took a kitchen knife and cut off her husband's
hair following an alleged attempt to renege on stock option agreements,
the D.C. woman had become something of a feminist folk heroine.

She
has gotten dozens of calls and letters of support, mostly from women,
offering everything from simple encouragement to help with legal fees or
research on her upcoming court case, said her Alexandra attorney, James
Lowe.

"The man in this situation basically got what
every woman who has been abused would like to have done but just wasn't
able to do," said Elie Petrakis, 37, who along with six co-workers in a
District dress shop, including one man, wrote a letter to Gloria Haft
and sent a copy to newspaper reporters.

"We thought
she needed some encouragement," said Dolores F. Ross, 68, who also
signed the letter. I haven't been cheated out of a stock option
agreement but I've been close, and as far as we're concerned, it was
justified."

Gloria Haft's husband, Herbert Haft, 72,
was charged last week with breach of fiduciary duties and faces a Sept.
27 jury trial. She was charged shortly after the June 23 incident with
malicious wounding. A trial date is to be set in early September.

Haft's
hair was surgically reattached after a 7-hour emergency hair weave
procedure, and his doctors report that he is making a good recovery.

Herbert
Haft's son, Robert Haft, explaining why his father didn't simply
purchase a toupee, is reported to have said, "Toupees cost too much!"